Today is, as you might have heard, the last day of National Chip Week 2010, and, typically, the Potato Council's PR people have produced a colourful variety of tenuous, tabloid-friendly stories for our amusement. However, you will have to look elsewhere for analysis of Aston University's research that chips make people "13% more cheerful", or a discussion of whether or not anyone in Portsmouth really uses the phrase "snag and chips".

No, instead, as Jesus might, Word of Mouth asks you all to take a moment and consider the chippies. Because, in National Chip Week, that is surely who and what we should be celebrating: their dynamism, their flexibility, their resilience.

Moreover, while its popular image may be one of greasy, old-fashioned stolidity, the British chippy has, in fact, never been more energetic. Patronising Michelin star chefs may occasionally swan in to show everyone how it's done, or not, but at a grassroots level the British chippy is already modernising, already fighting its corner.

Colman's, in South Shields, is over 100 years old, but third-generation owner Richard Ord is a confirmed moderniser. He was recycling his waste oil and buying sustainable fish long before it was fashionable. Indeed, Colman's has just won another award for such. His specialist, imported Dutch frying ranges are ultra-efficient units that maintain a constant high-temperature - apparently, the key to great fish 'n' chips is very hot oil and batter chilled to just above freezing - and he has just taken the unusual step of having his food nutritionally analysed.

That chemical analysis found that a 450g portion of Colman's fish, chips and mushy peas contains just 5.3% fat. This information is now printed on all its medium takeaway boxes. Ord is a pragmatist. Fish 'n' chips, he concedes, will never be health food, but why shouldn't chippies state their case? On holiday in Las Vegas, recently, Ord's son wanted to order a portion of chicken wings (1600Kcal). In comparison, a medium portion of Colman's fish 'n' chips contains just 689Kcal.

It is not just a matter of sustainability and nutrition, either. Across the country, chippies like Tailend in Edinburgh, Atlantic Fast Food in Glasgow, and Eddie Gilbert's in Ramsgate, are frying to increasingly high culinary standards. In Birmingham, the excellent Great British Eatery is clearly aimed at a picky, food-conscious clientele. GBE fries in beef dripping, makes its own tartar sauce, uses seasonal varieties of mainly wet (as opposed to frozen-at-sea) fish, and fries every portion to-order. It sells beer from Holden's, a local brewery, and Freedom lager too, as well as tinned roe and its own-recipe sausages from Musk's in Newmarket.

The Fish Shed, at Dart's Farm, in Topsham, is even more holistic. It is half-fishmonger, half-chippy - a hybrid that is popular in Australia, apparently - and one that helps ensure that all the Fish Shed's stock is used at its optimum freshness, within 36 hours of it being landed. 80% of that fish comes from local day-boats, including one that the Fish Shed owns. The menu, meanwhile, both revives the best old school techniques - the Shed's beer batter is made daily with fresh yeast - while venturing into simple, modern seafood dishes: grilled mackerel with a green salad, or monkfish goujons and aioli.

Cheap, sustainable, British and relatively healthy: do you agree that the chip shop has a bright future? Or are these 'new wave' chippies too little, too late? Could these Fancy Dan fryers even ruin this traditionally fuss-free staple?